Participants at the Rotary International’s annual conference, held in San Diego, Calif., pose for a photo, Wednesday. From left are former Rotary International President Glenn Estess, Rotary Foundation Chair Jonathan Majiyagbe, Rotary President Lee Dong-kurn, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Co-Chair Bill Gates, Rotary President-elect John Kenny and former Rotary Foundation Chair Robert Scott.

By Michael Ha
Staff Reporter

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, one of the largest charitable organizations in the world, has awarded a $255 million grant this week to Rotary International to combat polio.

Rotary International, with more than 32,000 clubs and over 1.2 million members worldwide, aims to bring together business leaders from around the world to provide humanitarian services. Rotary's current president is Korean business executive Lee Dong-kurn.

Rotary said it would match the grant from the Gates Foundation with $100 million raised by its members over the next three years. The announcement was made during the Rotary International's annual leadership conference, held in San Diego, California, on Wednesday.

``With the support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, we are on the brink of eradicating one of the most feared diseases in the world," Rotary Foundation Chair Jonathan Majiyagbe stated, adding, ``This shared commitment of Rotary and the Gates Foundation should encourage governments and nongovernmental organizations to ensure that resources and the will of the world are available to end polio once and for all."

Rotary also announced that the U.K. government is offering $150 million and the German government is pitching in with an additional $130 million to the international Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI). The initiative, led by Rotary International and the World Health Organization as well as a number of national governments, is the single largest, internationally coordinated public health project in the world.

But Rotary International cautioned that the polio eradication effort still faces a funding shortfall if it is to be achieved.

The group said that polio has been completely eliminated in the Americas, the Western Pacific and Europe. But the wild virus persists in Afghanistan, India, Nigeria, and Pakistan, and imported cases from these countries threaten other developing nations, it said.

Rotary clubs worldwide already are hard at work raising the matching funds for what the organization has named ``Rotary's $200 Million Challenge." Since the first Gates Foundation challenge grant was announced, Rotary clubs have raised more than $60 million.